Our 2012 Paleo Thanksgiving

We had a full house this Thanksgiving. Brent's mom, Kathy, did an amazing job decorating the table for us.

Hey everyone!

We hope you've enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving and are recovering from the food comas with rest and relaxation this weekend. ;) Having successfully hosted our first Thanksgiving, I (Heather) am feeling a bit sentimental.

Coconut-Dill Veggie Dip

Yesterday we hosted our first BBQ since moving into our new home. We love entertaining and it's so great to have a huge backyard and a full-sized grill. Plus, our new house is plenty big and not all of our "living space" furniture is crammed into one room anymore! I think last night's BBQ was a great success--everyone seemed to really enjoy the food, beverages and conversation. YAY! 


We had burgers, brats, a veggie platter, a fruit platter, and our friends each brought a little something to share. There were crackers and olives stuffed with anchovies and wine and these OMG-to-die-for-sweet potato fries baked with pumpkin pie spices (Thanks, Nicole and Brian--you two are brilliant!). Are you drooling yet? Well, if not, I think you will be soon because I'm finally going to get the point of this post...


Coconut-Dill Veggie Dip

Paleo-friendly Carrot Pulp Bread - Attempt 2

In case you haven't read Attempt 1, the long story short is that it came out overly moist (yes, it's possible, just go read that post); perhaps the better description is oily. Either way, I adjusted a few things and tried again this past weekend...

Unfortunately, this time, the bread came out too dry and crumbly. I probably should have only adjusted one or two things, not five at once. Ah well, lesson learned. Here is what I did this time. One of these days, I will get this right...

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup olive oil, plus a little extra with which grease the pan
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 cups carrot pulp
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup flaxseed meal
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon corse Kosher salt
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Whisk the oil, eggs, and maple syrup together in a large bowl.
3. Then mix in the carrot pulp into the other wet ingredients.
4. Mix in a separate medium bowl the flaxseed meal, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
5. Mix the dry ingredients into the large bowl of wet ingredients.
6. Grease the bread pan with extra virgin olive oil (I used a pastry brush to do this).
7. Place the bread batter into the pan and place into the oven.
8. Bake for 40 minutes.

It is edible, but I can't say it's enjoyable. The bottom half of the loaf seems almost the right texture, but the top half is all crumbs; and the whole thing falls apart at the slightest touch. 

Maybe third time will be the charm? I can only hope.... :)

P.S. Sorry there are not pictures with this post. I had taken a few, but my iPhone needed to be reset recently and I ended up loosing the few pics I took for this recipe.

Paleo-friendly Carrot Pulp Bread - 1st Attempt

Disclaimer: This recipe didn't really fail, but it wasn't that good. This is labeled "1st Attempt" for a reason. I will revisit this recipe soon and try to fix it. Try it if you like, but read through this whole post and please tweak the recipe (as I suggest at the bottom or in your own way). And if you find a more successful way of doing this, please let me know!

Curried Ground Pork with Carrots and Celery

Last weekend Brent and I bought a couple cookbooks on sale at the local Barnes & Noble, and one of them was called The Curry Bible. Brent and I love food. Yes, we eat Paleo more and more frequently; but we love food, all kinds of it. Curry is one of my favorite things to eat out. All this Paleo business has kept us from going out to eat. Now, that's awesome because we're saving big money not eating out. But it's a little less awesome because we're not going out to eat for some of our favorite things (like curry!).

So, this weekend, despite being insanely busy (and not with the usual stuff like cleaning house and grocery shopping and cooking multiple big meals to have all week), I made sure to make some time for experimentation.

My one and only curry recipe that I make at home is a peanut-butter curry chicken. OMG I love that stuff. YUM. It is near and dear to my heart, but alas, peanuts are a legume and thus off-limits all through the Whole30 Challenge (oh wait, that's right, it's over! woah...) and generally not acceptable even when we're doing a 80/20 approach to Paleo. You know--80% Paleo, 20% whatever-we-want.

I guess Brent and I are pretty much sticking to Paleo (at least 80/20) from now on, with the occasional cheat day. This isn't an official decision, just something that seems to be happening. So, still in this 100% Paleo mindset and knowing that we had approximately 1 pound of ground pork desperately in need of being used hanging out in the fridge, I decided to try creating my own curried ground pork recipe. We also had plenty of onion and garlic (typical), lots spices in the cabinet (also typical), and a few select veggies in the fridge (carrots and celery, also in desperate need of being used soon). 

I started by looking through a few recipes in The Curry Bible. Then, I rummaged through our pantry and sniffed (yes, literally sniffed) a variety of different spices next to the curry powder.  This may sound a bit silly, but I find it very effective: I hold the curry powder in one hand near my nose, and then in the other hand hold one or two other spices at a time; I then sniff all three more or less at the same time, somewhat waving them in front of my nose so I can get all the scents as close to simultaneously as possible. In this case, I feel pretty confident it worked out. 

And so, without further adieu, here is my new Curried Ground Pork with Carrots and Celery recipe...